


Mayhem

by spencers-renaissance (tomlinsoul)



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s04e01 Mayhem, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, Insecure Spencer Reid, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Penelope is Tired of their bullshit, Spencer Reid is the Technical Analyst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28696458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomlinsoul/pseuds/spencers-renaissance
Summary: "Derek laughs, too, the relief of being both alive and loved by Spencer almost euphoric as he walks away from the still blazing ambulance. He guesses he has a terror cell’s failed attack to thank for his long overdue admittance of his love for Dr Spencer Reid, and the frankly wonderful news that it’s actually reciprocated."or; imagine that scene when Derek is driving the ambulance loaded with a bomb about to explode, except it's Spencer on the other end of the phone and they finally get their shit together. S4E1 AU.
Relationships: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Comments: 6
Kudos: 94





	Mayhem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Canadian_31](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canadian_31/gifts).



> A gift for the wonderful Canadian_31 who makes me cry literally every time she comments :') I hope it's everything you hoped for!
> 
> Some quick disclaimers: a lot of the dialogue was stolen directly from the episode and Derek & Spencer's conversation on the phone is almost an exact transcript. It's from my notes though so it may not be perfect. It also follows the case very closely and none of that is mine. 
> 
> A quick recap as this follows S4E1 which is technically a follow-on from the last ep of S3:  
> The BAU was called to the NY field office to investigate a series of random shootings in the city, often on subways and shit. They realise that this is actually a terror cell practicing for their big attack, and as this fic starts, they believe that the shootings were all in locations they planned to bomb in order to test 911 response times. Kate Joyner is Hotch's old friend, the blonde English one from Scotland Yard and Lisa is Lisa Bartleby, the NY field office tech analyst assigned to help Penelope in the show, Spencer in the fic.
> 
> With that out the way, enjoy!

The case had been stressful enough from the beginning. Spencer doesn’t often get to join the team in the field, usually staying in his computer den back in Quantico, so he’d initially been quite excited: he’d get to spend more time with Derek, plus visit New York, which he’s always had a strange sort of affinity for, as well as see his team in action. But then he’s working with equipment that isn’t his and they slowly piece together just how complicated this terrorism ring is and things seem more… bleak rather than exciting. 

They’d all been starting to make their way back to the hotel when the news of the bombing hit the networks, and Spencer’s heart is in his mouth as he rushes back to his post, meeting Lisa Bartleby with harried nods of acknowledgement. Almost as soon as he’s settled at his desk the phone starts ringing.

“Spencer,” Rossi greets as soon as he picks up, “you’ve seen the news?”

“Yes, I— do you know where anyone is? What should I do?” he asks, feeling the panic settle on his chest, his stomach clenching in fear he doesn’t dare try and address.

“I’m here with Penelope, she’ll handle the media,” Rossi says, and Spencer realises that he can hear her low, steady voice she always employs in moments of extreme stress in the background of the call. “I need you to call homeland security and direct them to every site of the recent shootings. Tell them to pour troops in. If our profile is right we’re looking at eight suicide bombers who are about to hit every one of those locations.”

“Actually, if we’re correct, there’ll be sixteen suicide bombers,” Spencer realises with a start. “We predicted they’ll hit the second wave of first responders, too.”

Their conversation is interrupted by the news reporting that the bomb was inside a black SUV near the Federal Plaza and Spencer is pretty sure his entire body stops for a moment: cells stop replicating, blood stops flowing, hair and nails stop growing. This is his family. And he doesn’t know where any of them are, spread across an unfamiliar, dangerous city.

“Right, Spencer, do you have eyes on the Plaza?” Rossi asks, controlled urgency colouring his voice as he tries to keep himself and everyone else as calm as possible.

“Uh— yes, I’ve got like three hundred cameras there,” he says, glancing at Lisa, the NY field office’s contribution to his technological complex, as they jump into action, “give me a minute.”

“I’m here with Penelope, but I don’t know where anyone else is,” Rossi says, and for the first time Spencer can hear the panic rising in his voice. It’s quickly suppressed, but it’s there, and it does nothing to help him calm down. “Find them.”

He instructs Lisa to find every camera feed 20 blocks out concentrically from 26 Federal Plaza before fiddling with his headset, taking a deep breath, and, naturally, trying Derek first. His name has been circling round Spencer’s head like a prayer ever since they heard that it was potentially one of their own hit by the bomb, and the knot in his chest starts to unravel when he picks up the phone.

“Yeah, I’m still here,” Derek says, sounding impatient and stressed, but Spencer doesn’t mind. He’s alive. He’s okay. 

“Thank God,” Spencer breathes. He keeps him on the line while he tries Emily, who sounds just as anxious when she picks up. He doesn’t mind though, he’s keeping a tally of everyone he knows is safe and it’s the only thing making him any less panicked. When JJ doesn’t pick up, the knot tightens a little and he tries to ignore the little string of ‘no no no’s dancing through his mind. 

He hears Emily’s distressed exhale and closes his eyes for a second before forcing himself to get his head back in the game. The phone goes dead mid-JJ’s voicemail message, and then Emily drops off the call, Derek following, and that’s it. He’s lost contact with his team, JJ and Hotch still unaccounted for. Before he can actually lose his head, Lisa is calling him over, and he finally has eyes on the bombing. 

He has to watch the man he sees as a father projected through the air by the blast from the bomb, and all he can hear for a solid five seconds is the fear buzzing in the static electricity around his ear. 

★

Derek arrives at the site of the explosion riled up in a way he hasn’t been for a long time, his only consolation being that he knows Spencer is safe. God, you can definitely count on working a terrorist attack in New York City to accentuate your crippling crush on a coworker; a subtle burn has settled itself across Derek’s chest, the urge to hold and protect Spencer far too distracting for the circumstances. 

He reports immediately to Captain Warner but before he’s even able to identify himself, he hears Hotch shouting desperately for help and he slips immediately into rescue mode. 

“Hey! This area’s restricted,” an ESU shouts at him, as soon as he dashes for the barrier, and he forces the blinding anger flaring in his stomach to simmer down as he turns to the Captain again. 

“That’s my boss down there,” he shouts, making himself as intimidating as possible. 

“I have my orders,” the Captain replies simply, eyes hard and unrelenting. 

“I don’t give a damn what your orders are.” He’s finding it increasingly hard to restrain his anger as he hears Hotch shout again, turning to look hopelessly down the road at him. 

“Look, I get it agent,” Warner attempts to placate him, “but we’ve been told by you that responders are the targets. So until the blast site is cleared, no-one goes in.”

Derek spins around to face him again. “You’re Marine Corps, right?” By the look on Warner’s face, he’s found his way in. “Right?”

“Please, go back to the marshaling point,” he replies, the fight draining out of him. 

“I’m not doing it,” Derek yells stubbornly, furiously. “I’m not just gonna let my man lay down there like that.” Conveniently, Hotch’s miserable call comes down the road again and Derek meets the Captain’s eyes with a hard gaze. “Never leave a man behind. You do remember that, don’t you?”

“Help us!” Hotch screams again. “We’re here! Please!”

Derek glares at the Captain, and sprints as fast as he can towards Hotch as soon as he nods his okay. His boss is clearly disoriented and in a state of obvious distress but he doesn’t look terribly injured. Kate, on the other hand, is clearly a different story, and any hope Derek has for her survival melts away as Hotch explains her arterial bleed and he has to tell him that they can’t expect an ambulance any time soon. He tries to tell the kid crouching down by Kate to leave, but he seems reluctant. 

Derek doesn’t have the headspace to analyse why until he’s finally got him to run off and Spencer’s ringing him to tell him that he’s the bomber. 

★

As soon as Spencer hears Derek run off after the bomber he feels his stress levels rising again. If Derek dies before Spencer finally works up the courage to tell him that he’s in love with him, he’ll never forgive himself for being such a coward, and he’ll never forgive Derek for leaving him. 

Immediately, he patches into the marshaling point and tells the rest of them, who have only just all reunited, what’s going on. 

“The bomb,” he explains, talking as fast as he can, “it was under Kate’s SUV. Hotch is out there with her, he seems okay but Kate is really hurt; they haven’t been able to move her.”

“Where was her SUV parked?” Rossi asks as they all gather around the computer.

“Two blocks east of Federal Plaza.”

“Two blocks east and they target Kate’s SUV?” He sounds incredulous. “Have you identified the bomber?”

“Lisa’s running him through VICAP,” he says, but shrugs hopelessly. He knows it’s a lost cause.

“Call Homeland Security,” Rossi instructs Penelope. “They should be at all the murder sites. See if they found anything.” She nods and stalks away on her heels, still managing to stay cool under pressure. Spencer would envy her, but he knows it’s only an external front, only a mask she has to wear out of complete and utter necessity.

“Okay, okay, but Morgan,” Spencer says, feeling more impatient and stressed than before, “he’s run after the bomber.”

“He’s run after the bomber?” JJ asks, bewildered. “Why?”

“He was at the bomb site,” he replies. “I’m trying to trace him on the city's CCTV network, but the feeds are grainy at best and completely severed at worst.” This is feeling more and more hopeless by the second, and the light at the end of the tunnel is only dimming. 

“Keep trying,” Rossi says, and then he’s turning to the rest of the team. 

Spencer takes a few calming breaths and focuses back on the computer in front of him. Find Derek, he thinks. Find Derek and, when this case is over, stop being a coward and tell him how hopelessly in love with him you are. The pool of dread and fear weighing his stomach down only seems to deepen as he searches relentlessly through the CCTV feeds he can access, looking for Derek and the bomber chasing through the streets of the city. Eventually, he finds him and follows his movements down to the subway station. He watches with baited breath as Derek looks around the empty platform, clearly shouting to the unsub, though Spencer can’t hear what he’s saying. He speeds up the feed, seeing as it’s delayed slightly and fast forwards to Derek entering the tunnel, his sense of dread only intensifying as he loses visual. 

Trying desperately not to panic, he fast-forwards until he’s watching in real time, but Derek still hasn’t emerged, and neither has the bomber, both still hiding in the secrecy of the depths of the city’s transport network. There’s a vague spark of light — which he later finds out was the bomber electrocuting himself on an exposed part of the railway — only barely visible on the poor quality of the camera feed, before Derek emerges, looking rattled but very much alive. 

He doesn’t have much time to celebrate Derek’s livelihood, however, because JJ and Penelope are patching him back through to their conversation. 

“Spencer, Homeland Security has poured tactical teams into all the locations on the geo-profile — SWAT, bomb techs, HRT, hazmat, the works — they found nothing,” Penelope says, clearly puzzled and frustrated.

JJ’s about to reply when something catches her eye. “Yeah, all except one,” she says. “Kate’s SUV — none of the shootings were near it.”

“Maybe it’s personal,” Penelope muses. “I mean, this death card they gave us; they delivered on it.”

“No,” Spencer jumps in, realising what JJ’s getting at, “that’s just it — they haven’t. A cell as large as this one and multiple targets to choose from, they target a single SUV?”

“It’s a diversion,” JJ says, “Everything that’s happened so far has appeared to be something it’s not. The seemingly random acts of violence, Emily’s suicide by cop to make us believe it’s all over. Hotch and Kate as an endgame; they want us to think this is over. They’ve deliberately skewed our profile to make us believe they would be at the sites of the shooting.”

“You’re right. That was memorable” Rossi says, finally chiming in as he gestures to a picture of the twin towers on the wall. “This is not. There’s something else.”

★

As soon as Derek manages to calm Hotch down, he summons the rest of the team to St Barclay’s and for the first time since the bomb went off under Kate’s SUV, the team is back together again.

“Are you okay?” Emily asks Hotch as soon as the team walks into the hospital. He’s scratched and bruised all over, visibly shaken, and clearly in a lot of pain but, Hotch being Hotch, he’s stubbornly refusing to accept the necessary medical attention and probably just wants to see the back of this whole ordeal, not unlike the rest of them. 

“I’m fine,” he says, clearly not fine at all but shouldering his jacket on anyway. “I just want to understand why I’m still alive. Did you identify Sam, the bomber?”

“Spencer put Sam and the other dead unsub into every known database,” Penelope offers. “Nothing.” At the mention of Spencer, Derek feels his heart clench in his chest. God, Spencer’s intelligence is so attractive to him, even though he knows it’s something his pretty boy can be so unreasonably insecure about it. He can’t wait to see the end of this night and touch him, reassure his aching, restless heart that he’s safe, alive, protected. 

Once again, he thinks cynically, nothing like a terrorist attack to leave him on the brink of finally telling Spencer how he feels. 

They quickly get back on topic, deducing as a team the terror cell’s real endgame: they’ll use a single chemical bomb planted in the ambulance. If Sam wasn’t calling 911 every few minutes but a number that went dead minutes after he died, then there’s only one reason he stayed with Hotch and Kate. To make sure the ambulance got to them. The ambulance they drove into a hospital, with the paramedic’s help, housing someone important enough to have the Secret Service protecting them. 

Derek doesn’t think. He runs. 

“Spencer?” he says, into his ear piece as he runs down the stairs, refusing to let fear come to the surface. “I need you to jam the frequencies in this cell block for as long as possible, okay?”

“What’s going on?” Spencer asks, clearly concerned, but Derek can hear him already tapping away at his computer.

“Just,” Derek pauses, takes a second to feel, process, and then suppress his panic, “just… I need you to do this for me, alright, pretty boy.”

“I’m already on it.” Spencer sounds exactly he does: carefully, artificially calm. He runs down the last few flights of stairs and into the parking garage, locating the ambulance before he hears Spencer again. “Morgan?” 

“Yeah, baby,” he says, panting half from the exertion of sprinting down far too many flights of stairs and partly from the pressure of the situation settling on his chest — the stakes actually registering for the first time. 

“You sound stressed,” Spencer says, deliberate and light. “Where are you?”

“Not where I want to be right now,” Derek replies, a little self-deprecatingly. Really, it’s just deflection; a last ditch attempt at avoidance of the likelihood he dies tonight. “Reid, take this down for me: FDNY 108.”

“That’s an ambulance, are you okay?” His voice is quick and rises ever so slightly in pitch. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just track it for me.” Tentatively, he opens the door to the ambulance, heart sinking and blood pressure rising as soon as he clocks the monumental bomb stowed neatly in the trunk of the seat. “Reid, how long can you keep jamming the cell block?” He knows he’s sounding breathless now and he knows Spencer is probably panicking, unable to know what’s going on but clearly reading enough of the situation to understand that asking would be decidedly unhelpful right now. 

“Uh, maximum of a few minutes, Morgan,” Spencer replies. “Why?”

“I’m going to have to get this ambulance out of here.” This is it. The culmination. 

“Or you could just evacuate the building like everyone else,” Spencer says urgently, sounding outraged at the idea. 

Derek cringes at the disapproval, but he doesn't have a choice. “No, as soon as the airwaves are clear, this thing’s going up.”

“Going up?” Spencer doesn’t bother concealing the outright panic in his voice anymore. “That’s like… in three minutes, that’s when the satellite moves position.”

“Reid, listen to me,” Derek says, climbing into the cab of the ambulance and beginning to fiddle with the wiring. “I need you to find me an area of town I can drive this thing, and you tell everybody, you hear me, everybody that I’m coming.” He finally gets the engine to start and begins to drive out of the garage. “Alright. Talk to me, Reid.” He prays desperately that they get this right, that Spencer helps him, that they manage to subvert this terrorist attack. 

“Okay,” Spencer says, back to his measured, calm tone of voice, and Derek sighs in relief at the sound. “Okay, head north… and floor it. I’ll tell you where to turn.” He’s almost out of the garage when the ‘paramedic’ starts shooting at the back of the ambulance, screaming in rage as Derek manages to escape both van and bomb unscathed. “What was that?”

“It was nothing,” Derek shouts, heart pounding in his ears as he turns the sirens and lights on, stepping on the gas as he heads north, “it was nothing. Just… talk to me. How am I doing, Reid?”

Derek hears Spencer ask Lisa for an update before exhaling hard. “1 minute, 50 seconds,” he replies, despair spilling into his voice. “Why does it always have to be you? Why do you always have to do this?” His stomach clenches at the sound of Spencer on the edge of tears and feels himself tearing up in response, swallowing his grief in lieu of actually replying. “Derek, you don’t have much time. Please be smart about this. Signal’s coming back on line, there’s thirty seconds until full coverage.”

Derek’s never driven so fast, his hands pinching at the steering wheel and every muscle tensed. He tries very hard not to think about the fact that there’s a bomb only a metre behind him, set to explode in less than half a minute.

“Derek, drive to the opening and then get the hell out,” Spencer says, no constraint to his emotion at this point, he’s almost shouting down the phone, very clearly crying, now. 

He swallows. He has no choice; he has to tell him. “Spencer,” he says, nearly choked off by a sob, “there’s something I really want you to know.”

“Save it,” Spencer shouts. “Just get out!”

“No, you know what Reid? If I don’t make it out of this alive, I need you to know that I love you, alright?” he says, finally confessing to the secret he’s been holding close to his chest for so long, but as soon as the words are out of his mouth, he’s throwing himself out of the ambulance and running as fast as he can away from it, still not outrunning the blast picking him up and tossing him across the field. 

Slowly, getting back to his feet, he turns to face the fire as he catches his breath. He has no idea how he’s still alive. 

Fiddling with his earpiece, he tunes back into Spencer’s line to hear him crying on the other end. “Oh, God, Derek, I love you, too,” he sobs as soon as he hears Derek click back into the call.

“Spencer, I’ll tell you what you are to me,” he says, relief and warmth and love blooming across his chest, driving out the crippling fear and panic previously rooted there, “you’re my God-given solace. Baby, you promise me one thing… whatever happens, don’t you ever stop talking to me.”

Spencer laughs wetly, and it’s the most beautiful sound Derek’s heard so far. “I’m so mad at you, right now,” he says, but his happiness is written across every word, “I’m so angry. But… I love you, too.”

Derek laughs, too, the relief of being both alive and loved by Spencer almost euphoric as he walks away from the still blazing ambulance. He guesses he has a terror cell’s failed attack to thank for his long overdue admittance of his love for Dr Spencer Reid, and the frankly wonderful news that it’s actually reciprocated.

★

Derek and Hotch arrive back at Quantico 12 hours after everyone else, having driven home instead of taking the jet with the others due to Hotch’s rather inconvenient ear trauma. That only gives Spencer more time to panic over seeing him for the first time since their deathbed love confessions; they’d spoken briefly on the phone the morning before Derek and Hotch set off, promising to talk about it in person as soon as he was home, and now he nearly was.

Penelope had made a beeline for Spencer as soon as the others had arrived and taken him out for coffee, despite their mutual exhaustion. She’d deduced the situation based on Spencer’s incredibly cryptic HELP. IT HAPPENED. text message almost immediately after the explosion, having been the only one Spencer had confided in about his feelings for Derek. No matter how much she promised him Derek felt the same, he refused to do anything about it, leaving her to watch her two favourite people pine miserably for one another, and actively choosing to remain in said misery instead of confessing and being happy. 

He now actually felt bad for her. 

“Just tell him what you want,” Penelope says over the top of her latte, croissant crumbs littering the table in between them. “You want to get married and have lots of babies with him.”

“Okay, first of all,” Spencer says, fixing her with a look, “you know that neither of those things are true. And, secondly, it’s not that simple. What if he isn’t looking for a relationship or anything? Why hasn’t he said something before now?”

To her credit, Penelope avoids slamming her head into the table in frustration despite how much he looks like she wants to. “Spencer,” Penelope says, levelling a look right back at him, “Derek thought he was about to die. And in that moment, all he felt like he needed was to be sure that you knew he loves you. How could you possibly be that in love with someone and not crave a relationship with them?”

Spencer finds it hard to argue against that. 

Derek reclines on Spencer’s sofa, comfortably surveying the organised chaos of his living room, while Spencer tries to gather the snacks and drinks as calmly as possible in the kitchen, finding it much harder to assume the seemingly unaffected air Derek pulls off so easily. He walks back to where he’s sitting, and he almost drops his only slightly wobbly tray at the blinding smile Derek sends his way. 

“Oh, pretty boy, you’re spoiling me,” he teases, sitting upright and leaning forward to survey the snacks Spencer had rushed out and bought earlier that afternoon. Naturally, he blushes immediately at the compliment and sits next to him on the sofa, grabbing a drink for something to do with his hands. 

“Well, if all it takes is some cheese puffs from Walmart to make you happy then I think this is going to be alright,” Spencer says, trying for cool, calm, and collected and hitting somewhere near nervous and frenzied instead.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Derek scoffs as he breaks off a piece of chocolate and takes a bite. “I’m here for you, not the refreshments, luxurious as they might be. I don’t remember confessing my love to snack food in the moment I thought I was going to die.” He ruffles Spencer’s hair as his face heats up even more, smiling bashfully over at him. 

“No,” Spencer agrees, feeling all warm inside, “you told me.”

Derek looks serious all of a sudden. “I did,” he nods, leaning forward to put the chocolate down on the tray so he can focus all his attention on Spencer, taking his hands in his own, “and I meant it. I’ve probably been in love with you since you joined the team, Spencer, but I realised it properly last year, and I was always too scared to say anything. I’m sorry it had to be in that moment, and I’m even more sorry that if I’d died you would have had to live with that for the rest of your life.” He pauses and looks down at his lap for a moment. “That was unforgivable.”

Spencer smiles at him, gripping Derek’s fingers a little tighter. “I’m not mad about any of that, Derek,” he says, “I’m just glad it finally happened. And so is Penelope, apparently. She’s been telling me you loved me back for years but I never believed her; I didn’t think this would ever happen.”

Derek chuckles fondly at that and brings his hand to Spencer’s cheek, brushing his fingers across the warm skin for just a moment, but Spencer can’t help but lean into his touch, eyelids fluttering half-closed as they meet in such an intimate manner. “So, pretty boy,” he says, smile warm and eyes bright, “shall we give this a go?”

Spencer looks back up at Derek and takes a second to let the moment he’d daydreamed about for so long sink in, let himself marinate in the love that Derek has for him. “Yes,” he replies. “Please.” And then Derek’s lips are on his own, his hands around his face, and the future’s never looked so bright.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a bit of a bitch to write at times but I hope it turned out okay...
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated and make me very happy, but honestly just so glad you're here!
> 
> This is the [rebloggable post](https://spencers-renaissance.tumblr.com/post/641850326308339712/mayhem), and though this was a gift for Canadian_31, anybody can request fics on my tumblr, @[spencers-renaissance](https://spencers-renaissance.tumblr.com/), or in the comments! Come say hi :)


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